Built in 1925 to house the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, this fantastic red-brick building is currently home to Cucina Toscana, an Italian restaurant on the main floor and two living spaces above. It’s a prime spot, to put it lightly: the lucky owners are hovering above Pioneer Park on the corner of 300 south and 300 West. These two homes encompass the perfect way to live downtown without sacrificing outdoor space.

The designers started stripping away much of what the last tenant had installed in order to reveal all the raw and simple beauty of the space’s original form. From there, they started carefully adding layers back on that worked harmoniously with the industrial vibe. The magic lays in the richness, created with specific materials. Aged, natural, cherry-finished cabinets in the kitchen, dark colors, black painted metalwork: it’s all delightfully juxtaposed by bright white walls and massive windows that allow for copious amounts of natural light throughout the space.

A smart move in retaining this building’s old charm was by keeping the brickwork exposed. The brick walls offer a new look while preserving the history and the original character of the edifice.

The master bath is a dish of gothic industrial: a metal/chain chandelier over a custom, matte-black-enameled tub that’s perched opposite the ebony-stained cabinets. The walls are lined with 48” wood tile planks, which add a lot of texture and a touch more drama. The designers managed to add an organic element to an otherwise very hard and raw space with the grass-cloth wallpaper, and to accentuate the high ceilings, we hung 72” pendants from the ceiling over each nightstand. But the highlight is that double-sided fireplace (so you can take your romance in the bedroom and the living room).

Lounge area

One of the first things you will notice when walking into the lounge is a circular sofa, with eleven uniquely-designed compartments. Different textures, fabrics and colors have been used to create a focal point in the room, which will likely initiate conversation when guests visit the property. Modular sofas also feature in a seating area positioned in front of a large television, and cushions of different sizes and shape adjourn the sofa, which lie in bold contrast to the industrial feel of the rest of the room. However, these elements were already present in the property before the apartment was renovated – the concrete ceiling and wooden floor were discovered by accident when a 200-pound metal door was removed. Contemporary canvas art brightens up the far wall, adding a splash of color and style to the apartment, while mirrors line the ceilings, helping to create a feeling of more space.

Dining area

One of the most impressive features of the apartment is the dining table, which has been renovated and then mounted onto a rough oak worktop. In fact, many interior design elements were made according to the original sketches of the designer. The original objective was to create a unique space with an unusual atmosphere, with many echoes of the classic style of the famous motorcycle brand Harley Davidson. The dining area is a warm and welcoming space ideal for entertaining guests.

Other elements

Other design elements in the home include an original Harley Davidson motorcycle, a gramophone, and two contemporary chandeliers which illuminate the oak table. The kitchen metal worktop has been constructed onto carved food which spells out “eat”, with two wooden chairs on either side. This space is ideal when eating breakfast or grabbing a quick meal. In the bathroom, plenty of gold has been used, whilst floral prints and rustic charm are the design styles used in the bedroom. Contemporary framed art adjourn the hallway walls, which still contain many original elements of the building. As there is no natural light in these hallways, spotlights are used to illuminate the space.

Looking at this huge, honest-looking industrial loft with the old walls of rough brick, cracked wood beams, rusty mechanisms and flaky creaking doors, instantly forgetting that it is located on the top floor of a modern business center, and more recently was a new, blank and impersonal space.

The idea of converting  an empty floor of an apartment buildingto a loft was brought by a customer, and Leo Lugovskoy was happy to help, skillfully transforming a bare concrete space into a lively industrial interior. Good thing, he had plenty of space to work with: the area of the space is 130 sq meters and the ceiling height is 4.2 meters.

The master room all was imagined as a bachelor pad, along with a host experiencing a midlife crisis!

says the architect. Such description says that the customer is okay with humor and irony. In addition, he is an intellectual, lover of music and reading; so the main areas of the loft became a music library and a living room.

A special pride of the architect is the texture of the walls, beams, decking. The effect of the old shabby, “seasoned” surfaces appeared thanks to the artists studio Gregory Protasov.

The effect they have created is so natural

says Lev Lugovskoy

that people, once here, always asked me the same question: Why did you not paint the wall? Did you need to leave the wall to rust and with old paint ?

And that is the main evidence that the decorative component turned out to be very natural.

Equally convincing is the window, with a typical industrial look, old handles and a beautiful arched masonry of old bricks. Many of the objects and ideas in our interior were produced a long time ago – says the architect. We were hunting for them in stores, waiting for weeks of inspiration and joining solutions, dug antique shops in search of the object corresponding to the time and place.

For all his scrapes and authenticity of an old-fashioned loft, it is packed with modern technology: lighting equipment for organ concerts, high-tech sound system for high-quality audio playback and video projection installation to accompany private concerts.

A few words about the architects of this home: M.N. Ahari, architected the recent renovation, interior designer Fernando Santangelo, (the genius behind one of Hollywood’s havens for the rich-and-famous, the Chateau Marmont), transformed this historic townhouse from an all-white Zen oasis into a brooding bachelor pad for his friend James Oakley, a filmmaker. Oakley, whose stepfather owns the Cleveland Browns, bought the home in 2012 for $5.8 million, but after the extensive renovation he’s now looking to sell the residence for $12.5 million.

Though its presence on Bedford Street dates back to 1836, the interior of this Greek Revival-style townhouse has come a long way from its 19th century roots. According to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, who featured the home on their 2014 house tour, the structure was originally two-and-a-half stories high, first owned by Charles Oakley (interestingly of no relation to James), a prolific developer in 1820s Greenwich Village. In the 1920s, the top floor was added as an artist’s studio, and this lounge is what James now considers “the best room in the house.”

The parlor level’s reception gallery welcomes you with a stunning mezzanine featuring Olive Elm Burl veneer walls, Venetian Terrazzo floors, and a nearly invisible glass half-wall that overlooks the 300-plus-square-foot great room on the garden floor, which draws you in with an absolutely magnificent two-story wall of glass highlighting the lush gardens and flooding the interior with an abundance of natural light. This double-height space was a 1989 addition.

The Garden Floor, with soaring 18’ ceilings is perfect for entertaining. Opulently appointed dining and living spaces offer details such as a towering soapstone fireplace, remote-controlled floor to ceiling drapery, and Bardiglio Nuvolato marble radiant-heated floors. The open chef’s kitchen features Crystal Stratus marble countertops, and professional-grade stainless steel appliances. The dining area offers a stunning, built-in Antique Mahogany Armoire converted to a custom built-in dry bar with ice machine.

The open chef’s kitchen features marble countertops and professional-grade stainless steel appliances, and the dining area offers a stunning, built-in antique mahogany armoire converted to a custom built-in dry bar with ice machine. Though both can seem a tad claustrophobic when compared to the adjacent great room, they take full advantage of the view afforded by their luxurious neighbor and provide an elegant venue for entertaining guests in style.

Speaking of entertaining, the home’s fully finished basement is outfitted with a state-of-the-art home theater and ample wine storage for the devoted wine collector. The colorful fabric walls and recessed lighting beautifully conceal the fact that you’ve entered the home’s lowest level.

When you’re ready to call it a day, the two pin-drop quiet bedrooms await on the residence’s third floor. The inviting master suite overlooks the sunlit southern gardens and offers a bath with Luce de Luna Quartzite slab marble and Barber Wilson custom hardware and the guest suite extends to an oversized spa-like bath retreat.

The Fourth floor presents a dramatic sky-lit atelier/studio with powder room and wet bar, easily convertible to a private master floor. An outdoor spiral staircase leads to the rooftop, which features a sitting area and spectacular views of the surrounding neighborhood.

There is a 29’ deep southern garden with mature cherry blossom tree, along with 2 additional outdoor retreats – each with irrigation and lighting systems in place, remote controlled awnings, and radiant heated floors in select locations.

The New York Times recently called this house the “Dark Knight.”

Oakley admits to the paper that he loves “those sort of noirish environments” and says “I hate white, I despise it.”

This loft of 115 sq. meters located in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraine. A project is executed in style of loft with the use of great number of characteristic elements. An apartment is in new building in the center of city.

The architects’ starting point was to create a loft for a gentleman, rather than a hipster. Martin Architects came up with a bold design that’s not for the shy and retiring. A glass paned wall partly conceals a bedroom from the main living space, which faces an open kitchen, with a fire set ingeniously into its units.

The bold space is adorned with raw brick, cement and wood alongside refreshing designer furniture pieces. A wall of plants framed by reclaimed wood adds both a witty touch and greenery to a dining area. Colours throughout are masculine greys and browns, with yellow accents in rugs and lights, while exposed concrete forms the backdrop to an adventurously-styled bathroom.

The most important feature of this Kyiv Loft is furniture and elements of decor, which were made Ukrainian masters, companies and designers. Furniture of Igor Martin, developed for a company HIS (Home Ideas Supply), made debut in this project. The apartment is also a smart house; everything can be done through a smartphone.

An absolutely stunning example of modern loft design with a masculine touch.

The location of the house as well as the personality, way of living and needs of the client were the main parameters in the design of this project.  Karakoy had always been the heart of the commerce in Istanbul.  Nowadays the old neighborhood is getting more hip and active with many new art galleries, boutiques, restaurants and hotels all around.  The house is situated right in the middle of this hustle and bustle.  Meanwhile the client’s outdoor personality was of course our main drive when choosing materials and creating space.  Natural, neutral, comfortable, practical are the keywords to describe.

The structural approach of the house was to open up to get more light and view. The previous small window openings on the front façade were enlarged and the new folding window frames slide the width of the building to transform the living room into a balcony, since the apartment is missing one.  And a large rectangular skylight was inserted just below the peak of the pitch to provide light and view to the mezzanine.

The design approach of the house however was ‘not to have too many ideas’.  We evaluated the entire house as a whole and single space since its layout was to be designed for a single person’s use, and all the spaces was planned to be entwined together.  There was no need for dividing the space into many small rooms.  Therefore, we didn’t need different design ideas for different rooms.  We came up with a few design approaches and used it all around the house;

– One of the longitudinal walls was resolved as storage. A very simple system was designed with iron rods climbing two floors and running the length of the house, without categorizing as living room, kitchen, library or bedroom. 12mm iron rods coming out of the wall and 16mm rods connected to them creating a 60x60cm grid over the wall surface. Various shelving units and accessories were designed to fit this system, such as a single shelf, double or triple story shelves, vertical separators or hanging units. The user may arrange and utilize this storing system however he likes; as a library, a woodshed, kitchen storage, or a wardrobe.

The other longitudinal wall facing this busy storage system was designed with least movement as possible to create a serene side and was covered with natural stone in varied sizes. This wall starts in the living room and continues all the way up and through the bedroom.

All through out the mezzanine, the surfaces were covered with a cement-based material, uninterrupted, for a pleasant feeling for the naked feet. This surface created the floor all around, including the shower and also the block, which nestles the bed and the bathtub.

Apart from practicality, the warmness that the house needed was achieved with a continuous ceiling of iroko wood, that rise from the wall to the ceiling, creating also a wide seating unit in front of the window for crowded gatherings.

Finally, the cast-concrete block surface which was created to form the kitchen counter framed in an iron structure, steps down and forms itself into a cantilevering dining table and ends up as a short plinth as the hearth, which also allows extra seating around the table.

Originally designed to protect the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, the brief was to convert the fort into a luxury retreat and function venue. The project was approached with a deliberate intention of ensuring any proposals would not only stand alone as examples of architectural merit and efficient space management, but more importantly co-exist with the strong, utilitarian aesthetic without confusing the historic origins of the building. A successful scheme would form a distinctive and constructive imprint on the life of a building which has been continuously modified and added to for more than a century.

The property consists of three distinct levels: the basement-like munitions store, the spacious gun deck and external courtyard, and the rooftop lighthouse and former gun emplacements.

The unique floor plan and inflexibility of the original structure required an innovative strategy in forming a coherent layout, with the limited number of external windows and the need for a simple means of circulation causing further concern. The exposed nature of the internal structure proved both a blessing and a hindrance, with eight of the fifteen gun locations forming the focus for each of the new bedrooms; however, creative approaches were needed to address the distribution of modern mechanical and electrical services throughout a solid nineteenth-century building. Understanding that face-fixed cables and pipework would cause an unsightly disruption to the historic context, considerable efforts were made to contain services within a newly created floor void wherever possible.

A strong sense of functionality pervades the interior of the Fort. Exposed structural elements visibly disclose the simple yet strong construction processes of the period; rows of vaulted red-brick arches curve away from the viewer, contrasting with the iron panels and riveted beams that radiate from the centre of the building, transferring the colossal weight of the concrete roof through a perimeter of columns to the floor.

Stylistically, all this history is capable of speaking for itself; by adhering to the practical attitudes of the original creators, and consciously avoiding the easy mistake of placing desirable yet distracting features, the purpose of the proposals was always to direct attention towards the authentic and original rather than away from it. This deliberate use of unpretentious design was a crucial factor when considering artificial lighting; concealed LED uplighters would direct the eye towards the natural textures present, producing a twofold result of both illuminating a surface as if a work of art, and lighting a space practically without harsh glare or anachronistic light fittings. Additional benefits to this approach are minimal maintenance and energy consumption issues, and this was considered an essential methodology when specifying a range of features throughout the project. Colour schemes would be neutral and understated and, ideally, furniture would have a timeless, practical appeal that wouldn’t compete for attention with the historic aesthetic.

The original central passage to the gun deck, having been previously subdivided into separate uses, was reinstated, creating a natural path that leads the visitor round a gently curving brick-lined corridor providing access to all eight bedrooms, and affording quiet pockets of relaxation and contemplation with views of the courtyard. Frosted glass doors to male and female WCs allow borrowed light to fall upon areas otherwise difficult to illuminate, providing a diffuse natural glow to offset the electric lighting.

New designs for the rooftop areas were developed in a more contemporary style; once preservation of the existing features was assured, a more radical interpretation could be utilised for the accompanying structures. Concrete enclosures surrounding two former gun emplacements were re-contextualised as a fire pit and hot pool, simultaneously reflecting and contrasting each other in location and purpose.

The crumbling lighthouse and rangefinder station – itself a 20th century addition – serves as the highest point on the fort and is highly visible even from the Southsea seafront 1km away, and so plans to enhance this feature were fundamental in forming a rational approach to developing the rooftop. The additional function space, intended to be subservient to the existing form, eventually took on a character of its own, growing and evolving as the cost of years of exposure and neglect on the existing building was painstakingly revealed during renovation.

Upon completion, the lighthouse now serves as a signal both metaphorical and physical; it is the first concession to modern design visible on approach, and the renovated beacon with its navigation light has been returned to the roof, allowing the fort the dignity of retaining a small fragment of its functional origins. Seemingly precariously balanced on such an unforgiving and unrefined bulk, the faceted glazing of the lighthouse offers broken glimpses of both the clouds above and the comfort within, and provides an understated yet self-assured example of the successful regeneration of such an uncompromising and imposing structure.

You find everything about the proverbial loft here: industrial vibe, high ceilings, raw exposed brick walls. The browns and oranges are wonderfully coordinated, the place oozes warmth and friendliness.

Look out for the quirky details – the mixed geometric-patterned cement-tiles that had been coming back for the last year, as well as the painted (and hopefully sealed) bricks in the bathroom.

Kitchen cabinets in stainless steel and smoked glass have steel handles and internal drawers with dividers for different cutlery, dishes, etc door and groceries. The wardrobe has interior lighting, leather hangers, drawers colorless glass, cushioning and hidden drawers for jewelry. The bed is covered in white leather with a High Gloss Marine headboard.

The bench-work table, topped in High Gloss Ebony, works as a room divider and comes with leather handles and small niches for books.

At night the loft transforms into a captivating, romantic space complete with a light therapy feature and a designer “moon” light fixture art piece. The mezzanine upstairs boasts a walk in closet, sitting area, library and tempered glass feature that allows you to see directly downstairs.

Also, it’s available for rent here